Any clever storage solutions?

[mmcv]

Ithoriel, Resizer Champion of the Small Screened and Downscaled 

[fred.]

A handy setup - a couple of questions:
How do you manage to use so few paints? I have a painting station, that has space for 20 or so paints in two rows at the back, but the work area in the front always has at least as many bottles of paint on it again.

Secondly, how do you hold figures when painting them? I have mine attached to lolly sticks to make painting easier - I get about 8-10 figs on one strip, held in place with double-sided tape.

[Last Hussar]

I'm not good enough to use more shades.

[chrishanley]

Many years ago. early in my pursuit of 10mm nirvana I found that every commercial storage box I looked at was just too deep for most 10mm figures and so you stored more empty space than figures.
I realised the only solution was to make my own and came up with a multi-drawer box. Most drawers are 18mm deep for infantry and small vehicles. Larger vehicles go into drawers which are 24mm deep and cavalry fit nicely into those which are 30mm deep.
Most are built from 6mm plywood and for the first one I took great care in assembling it with fine nails and glue. For the boxes that came after, I just carefully clamped and glued the pieces together until the joint had hardened.

 

[mmcv]

Very clever Chris, lightweight but sturdy.

[fred.]

Nicely done Chris, good woodworking skills. And a good solution to the 'box is too tall' problem that often occurs with 10mm figures.

For the rest of us with less skills, there are a few options that I have used

1) Add a tray to a standard box file. This can either be a piece of MDF, or a quite like to use Foamcore, add a couple of support strips along the boxfile, I've used small strips of wood, or foam core. This can let you get two layers of troops in one box. With these I sometimes cut the shelf to be 2/3rds of the length of the box so any tall figures have the full height available to them.

2) Drawers like the Bisley ones for storing documents, these drawers are pretty shallow, so you get a lot in a single unit

3) MDF trays to go into Really Useful Boxes, there are a couple of manufacturers (at least) making these and they can really increase the volume of figures you can get in a RUB. Available in multiple heights to allow you to tailor the heights for different types of troops.